KIDS
Q & A with Isabella, Tasia & Sienna Draper
MARINA AND DAN DRAPER have been members of The Water’s Edge Country Club in Penhook, Virginia, for 20 years. Their home-away-fromhome on Smith Mountain Lake serves as escape from the workaday routine in Chicago, where Dan is CEO of S&P Dow Jones Indices and Marina is a stay-at-home mom. Their girls — Isabella, 14; Tasia, 12; and Sienna, 7 — have spent literally every summer of their life at the lakefront club, learning to ride horses, swim, golf and more. We zoomed with the vivacious trio just before school ended, to chat about summertime on the loveliest lake in the Commonwealth. 64
WHAT’S THE BEST PART OF SPENDING SUMMERS AT THE WATER’S EDGE? TASIA: I enjoy going out onto the lake and tubing. We love going to the club because the food is really good. SIENNA: Oh, yes, we love Sunday brunches there. And the diving board at the swimming pool. TASIA: That’s really fun because most pools don’t have a diving board. The water is so deep. We can play a lot of water games. ISABELLA: We like all the activities and camps. And we just love the horses. We love riding them and helping groom them at the farm. TELL US MORE ABOUT THE EQUESTRIAN CENTER — WE HEAR YOU’VE BEEN GOING TO HORSE CAMP SINCE YOU WERE LITTLE. TASIA: There are lots of horses and they’re all nice. At horse camp, we ride and we also do crafts and games. ISABELLA: The crafts are fun — especially when we paint pictures of the horses. SIENNA: My favorite is a horse named Dixie — she is so soft and kind. TASIA: My favorite is Buttercup — I like her because she goes really fast. ISABELLA: The older kids get to stay later to do things like build campfires and roast marshmallows. TASIA: The trails we ride have lots of trees and sometimes we see deer. SIENNA: There are pigs there, too. ISABELLA: And a donkey named Jenny. SIENNA: Jenny is best friends with Dixie. HOW ABOUT BOATING ON THE LAKE? ISABELLA: I just got my boating license because I’ve turned 14, so now I can drive the boat and the Jet Skis on my own. GET TO DO THAT WITHOUT YOUR PARENTS?
WHAT SORT OF FAMILY ACTIVITIES DO YOU LIKE? SIENNA: We like playing golf with our dad. IS YOUR DAD A GOOD GOLFER? ISABELLA: We think he is, yes.
ISABELLA: Oh yes, that’s the plan!
TASIA: Our mom likes tennis more … Sometimes we play tennis as a family.
SOUNDS LIKE TASIA IS A KEEN WAKEBOARDER.
SIENNA: And we ride bikes together.
TASIA: I like to wakeboard — there’s a wakeboarding park near The Water’s Edge and that’s where I learned. IS IT HARD TO DO? TASIA: At first yes, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty easy. And fun. YOUR MOM SAID TO ASK ABOUT THE CLUB’S PIZZAS. ISABELLA: Yes! The club had a kids camp with lots of activities. One of them was making pizza.
ISABELLA: We have a dog, so we all go on lots of walks with her. SIENNA: Her name is Chelsea. WHAT DO YOU TELL YOUR FRIENDS IN CHICAGO ABOUT SUMMERS ON SMITH MOUNTAIN LAKE? SIENNA: We say we are having so much fun. We tell them about the pool and our trampoline out in the lake, and about golfing and riding horses. ISABELLA: We tell them how lovely it is.
TASIA: You could make different shapes with pizza dough, too — they didn’t have to be just round.
TASIA: Sometimes our friends from Chicago and from overseas come to visit us — some of them have never ridden a horse before so we get to show them how. Our grandpa likes to fish, so when he comes visit we go fishing a lot.
ISABELLA: And we also learned to flip the pizza.
ISABELLA: We love entertaining guests.
SIENNA: You could put any topping you wanted on them.
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